‘India is currently suffering from the worst water crisis in history.’ Six hundred million people – nearly half of India’s population – face high to extreme water stress; 75 per cent of households do not have drinking water on-premise; 84 per cent rural households do not have piped water access; 70 per cent of water is contaminated. India currently ranks 120 among 122 in the water quality index – an astounding 200,000 people die each year from polluted water, according to NITI Aayog, India’s planning agency.
The constant pressures on the groundwater table by India’s ever-growing population (1.2 billion people and counting), increasing urbanisation, industrialisation, and agricultural needs coupled with erratic monsoons are depleting India’s groundwater resources.
Drawing about 250 cubic kilometres per year – more than a fourth of the global total – India is the world’s largest user of groundwater. More than 60 per cent of India’s irrigated agriculture and 85 per cent of drinking water supplies are dependent on groundwater, according to World Bank estimates. But over the past few years, the groundwater has been depleting rapidly.
The scarcity of water and depletion of groundwater has severe implications for food security in India. Nearly 600 million people are at high risk – including in the northwest and south, where much of India’s staple foods, wheat and rice, are grown, according to Washington D.C.-based World Resources Institute.
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